Roll Call: 6 Most Influential Tech Company CEOs of 2013
Year after year it seems like the headlines always read the same: huge growth in the tech industry. Well, 2013 was no exception. However, though prodigies Mark Zuckerberg get a lot of press, other tech CEOs are doing things that are just as amazing and noteworthy.
These creative and driven men and women don’t always get the recognition they deserve, so let’s take a moment for a quick roll call. Here are six of the most influential tech company CEOs of 2013.
Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO
Do you remember when Amazon only sold books?
Neither do I.
Amazon is now an e-commerce giant that sells nearly anything you could possibly want. In the third quarter of 2013 Amazon’s netted $17.1 billion in sales and reported an increase of 19 percent in active users.
These numbers could grow even more impressively if the smartphone Amazon is developing with HTC takes off. Although the business phone systems market is a little more competitive than the e-reader market, if Amazon’s success with the Kindle is anything to judge by, their new phone is going to do very well.
Dick Costolo, Twitter CEO
Despite the challenges that come when a tech CEO takes over for a company’s founders, especially when those founders remain on the board, Dick Costolo has more than proven his leadership ability in his last three years at Twitter. Under Costolo’s guidance revenues have soared from $28 million in 2010 to $254 million in the first half of 2013.
Combine this impressive growth with the fact that Twitter’s IPO (Initial Public Offering) was priced at $26, but the first sale was $45.10, and you know someone’s doing his job right.
Marissa Mayer, Yahoo CEO
Marissa Mayer inherited a royal mess when she took the post of Yahoo CEO, a company that’s been floundering under its previous six leaders. However, it was a mess with plenty of potential – potential Mayer seems intent on developing.
Since her appointment, Mayer has overseen 17 major acquisitions – including the popular micro-blogging site Tumblr. She also overhauled Flickr and had Yahoo’s homepage (and logo) redesigned.
Mayer warned the press not to expect growth in 2014, as she’s focusing on getting Yahoo’s product lineup right instead of spending money on advertising. We’ll have to wait and see how things turn out, but there’s no doubt that Marissa Mayer has vision.
Larry Page, Google CEO
No list of influential tech CEOs would be complete without Google CEO, Larry Page, who is quickly becoming one of the world’s most powerful people.
Last year Google generated a whopping $18 billion in profits – profits that Page has no scruples spending on things like: acquiring Motorola, Google Fiber, Google Glass, self driving cars, and other “Moon Shots.”
Jeff Weiner, LinkedIn CEO
After joining the company in 2008, Weiner grew LinkedIn’s membership from 33 million to 225 million. Many of these new members joined because Weiner had the minimum age lowered and oversaw the creation of a new product called “University Pages,” which aims at potential college-aged users.
Weiner also brought a new focus to LinkedIn’s mobile app. In the last three years LinkedIn’s revenue has increased ten-fold (literally), and its IPO has more than tripled.
Ginni Rometty, IBM
Rometty is IBM’s first female CEO and the first woman to be invited to the Augusta National Golf Club (a notorious all-men club). Under her leadership, IBM is going into underserved markets, like Africa, which will give them a significant head start as those markets begin to develop.
Rometty is also putting a lot of resources into IBM’s supercomputer, Watson, which won Jeopardy a few years ago. However, Watson does more than play game shows. It absorbs new information at an incredible rate, and is beginning to diagnose and fight cancer. Still, Watson’s potential seems barely tapped, and Rometty says the best is yet to come.
We live in exciting times – thanks in part to men and women like those on this list. Let’s just take a moment to marvel at how far we’ve come in the last year, and anticipate what’s to come in 2014!
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